Nursing degree

Essay by bsaha October 2004

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Developing the Roles and Responsibilities of The Qualified Nurse Teaching and Facilitating Others

As a registered nurse or indeed as a student nurse undertaking training,

teaching others may it be peers, clients or their families is an important

factor that is practised in a variety of contexts, day to day.

As The Code of Professional Conduct (2002) states the nurse is personally

accountable for their practice and must maintain and improve professional

knowledge and competence. It also states that the role of the nurse is

certainly to work in an open and co-operative manner with patients, clients

and their families, foster their independence and recognise and respect

their involvement in the planning and delivery of care.

Indeed if patients are to be involved in the planning of this care, their

understanding and learning of their illness/reason for their stay in hospital

is of paramount importance. When teaching others nurses must be active

rather than passive, practice in a variety of contexts, using measurable

objectives and understand the importance of motivation.

It is therefore important to understand as a nurse, that different people

may learn in many different ways, and that differing approaches may have to

be taken into consideration. There are various learning theories and

approaches to maximise understanding.

Knowles (1984) theory of andragogy is an attempt to develop a theory

specifically for adult learning. Andragogy makes assumptions about the

design of learning. Adults need to know why they need to learn something,

adults need to learn experientially. Adults approach learning as problem

solving and finally adults learn best when the topic is of immediate value.

Knowles theory identifies that strategies such as case studies, role-playing,

simulation and self -evaluation are most useful.

There are four principles of andragogy as identified by Knowles. The first

identifies that adults need to...